We get snowy owls as visitors during the winter sometimes but I don't think usually this early. I have a colleague at work who is a big birder. I'll ask him about how often we get snowy owls. Hard core birders are crazy about their hobby. They have various local to regional web sites and will post where they've seen uncommon birds and others will then go looking for them to get pictures. The guy at work has driven from here to north of Pierre (250 miles one way) to look for a couple of gyrfalcon that have been reported and he usually will find them!! Another time he drove down about 25 miles to find some warbler or sparrow that was hanging out in a couple of campsites in a state park. He found that one too. Its wild what they'll go through to find a bird!!

_________________"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground. Genesis 1:26

We get snowy owls as visitors during the winter sometimes but I don't think usually this early. I have a colleague at work who is a big birder. I'll ask him about how often we get snowy owls. Hard core birders are crazy about their hobby. They have various local to regional web sites and will post where they've seen uncommon birds and others will then go looking for them to get pictures. The guy at work has driven from here to north of Pierre (250 miles one way) to look for a couple of gyrfalcon that have been reported and he usually will find them!! Another time he drove down about 25 miles to find some warbler or sparrow that was hanging out in a couple of campsites in a state park. He found that one too. Its wild what they'll go through to find a bird!!

Sounds like my parents when they are sitting on the deck durring the summer.

I talked to another birder at work today. He said that SD usually gets only a few snowy owl sightings a year but this year at least three dozen sightings so far have been reported. He said something about lemming populations, one of their main food sources in the arctic, have crashed this year (they do a boom and bust cycle) and the owls have had to expand their ranges much more. Anyway, that's the theory. If you want people to show up in your neighborhood, just post the location on one of the birding web sites and they will come...

_________________"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground. Genesis 1:26

nonPCfed we have many snow owls here this year as well, i think you are correct about the lemming population down for the year.Last time we had a big influx of snow owl was about 6 or 7 years ago.We don't like to see them here in great numbers as they are hard on the marten population.

Yeah, now another birder I know says it was because the owls had a great reproduction year up north, so who knows for sure!! I've heard that Great Horned Owls will eat mink and skunk caught in exposed areas so I'm not too surprised about the snowies ripping up the martin. I lost three rats this year from one slough in early Nov. and saw both a GH owl and a mink on the edges over that time period, so I don't know if one or the other or both were tearing up the rats. I hope to get revenge on the mink in about a week or so!! Can't do nothing about the owls...

_________________"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground. Genesis 1:26

yeah, I talked to one of the main birders at work. He said a lot of the snowy owls are young males who never have seen people much. He said you can walk up less than 10 feet from most of them without getting them too riled up.

_________________"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground. Genesis 1:26